2 Months Old!

I'm having a hard time believing that my tiny baby is 2 months old already! You might be asking what happened to her 1 month picture? Um yeah...last week was the first time since she was born that I finally knew what day of the week it was. Sleeping in 3 hour increments for almost 2 months does amazing things to how one perceives time. Forget water boarding- the Government should interrogate  suspected criminals with a series of crying baby, sleep, and food deprivation. It's just so sad that I've been too tired to enjoy the "tiny baby" stage. I guess that's what grand babies are for.

I'm starting to get the hang of this thing called "motherhood"(I can hear you laughing). Grace is starting to smile more often and cry a little less. This is good because I swear a few weeks ago I was sitting in the bathroom and asked her if she wanted a new mommy, one that would make her cry less and smile more. The smiles make it much easier even if they happen less than I expected.

I discovered that the formula that I was feeding her was causing some of the horrible gas pains she was experiencing, so I changed from Similac to Enfamil Gentlease. I truly had a completely different baby within 24 hours. Then I stopped slightly warming her formula a week later and all the remaining issues disappeared. She doesn't have much patients for my learning curve, but in my defense, I never intended or expected to bottle feed her formula. I was honestly looking forward to breastfeeding and all the benefits that come with it. Instead I was dealt a different hand. Roll with the punches and make sure you buy more than 2 bottles just in case.

The house guests arrived non-stop starting when Grace was 12 days old and will continue through July. I'm not sure if our dwindling income can sustain such an entourage but it will be nice to see everyone.

48 Hours Later

48 hours after bringing Grace home from the hospital we were told by the doctor that Grace had to be readmitted for jaundice. A wicked case of jaundice, I might add. It took Grace 5 days to recover. At the time it was the scariest thing I've ever gone through mostly because we were absolutely helpless in what we could do. Here Grace is getting ready for her 5 days of light therapy.

Her first extended tanning bed experience.

Daddy holding Grace while she was still in the NICU.

My tan little baby fresh out of the box! We're waiting to get our final discharge papers to go home.

She got to come out only for feedings and diaper changes. She went in with a jaundice count of 8, which then spiked to 12, 14, 17, and 19 before it started to come down. She was blood tested twice a day, which was sad. I spent all the days with her because Alex had to work and it just happened at the same time as finals week. Then all of a sudden her numbers started to drop dramatically and we were home by May 5th.

That's when the fun started. Kind of. Not really. Hospital Baby Grace is way different than At Home Baby Grace. Hospital Grace is a perfect, quiet little angel. At Home Grace cries. A lot. And for long periods of time but randomly. I had NO IDEA how much new babies cry and for seemingly no reason. At Home Grace doesn't like anything from 5 pm until 9 pm and wants the entire neighborhood to know it. At Home Grace only sleeps if she is on your chest. In other words, someone has to hold her all the time and Alex is working 12 hour days. I am all alone and am just about at my wits end.

Hospital Grace and At Home Grace do have something in common: throwing up liquids through her nose. Before we left the hospital the first time we had to watch several videos about SIDS. Alex was convinced that we had to take turns staying up watching her sleep just to make sure sudden death didn't take place. I laugh now but those videos were fairly crazy to watch. The bubbling liquid that Grace silently chokes on in the middle of the night is even worse. I have to sleep sometime, so the kid sleeps with us and will until this disturbing behavior stops.

I've started to sing Mommy Lullaby's whenever I get the chance. Those are the ones you make up and will never be on the Baby Top 40 charts because the melody changes constantly along with the tone, volume, and pitch. My favorite so far is "Eskimo Kisses For My Nordic Baby". If she had her father's lovely skin tone it would be Olive Baby but she's pasty white like me so Nordic Baby it is. The song is not complete without the appropriately timed Eskimo kiss. I also have a "It's Time To Go To Sleep" Song. Simple enough, I repeat those 6 words over and over again until she's fallen asleep.

Grandma Harris will be here tomorrow. The visitors will be non-stop until June from here on out. I'm looking forward to having an extra set of well-experienced hands around to help.

And The Good News Is...

After almost 30 hours of natural labor, 

Grace Elizabeth Pavlovich, 

entered the world on April 27, 2013

 at 1:35 pm

6 pounds, 6 oz

18.5 inches long. 

Mom is doing great! Dad is in love!

God is so Gracious!

From Plum to a Cardboard Box

I'm officially 38 weeks along today. I have 14 days to go. Again, in theory.

I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable. The weather hasn't been all that great so my walking has been severely restricted. The dog is a little stir crazy and I don't blame him because so am I.

I did something daring yesterday. I measured my belly. This isn't really an unusual thing. It happens quite often at baby showers as a game. The guests try to guess with a piece of string how long around the expectant mum is in the middle. The soon-to-be mommy looks mortified, the guests laugh, and the winner gets a prize. It's all in good fun. Except, I won't be having a baby shower so the only one laughing is me. Which is a little pathetic, actually. Oh well. So the measuring tape said 46 inches. Not bad given that my bust is 45. It's been an amazing adventure watching my uterus grow from the size of a plum to that of a cardboard box. I wonder how big I'll actually be when it's all said and done.

Falling asleep has become increasingly difficult. I'm seriously propping my stomach up on the side with a fleece pillow. Then I put another pillow under my arm pit and another one under my back. I'm pretty sure I look like the U.S.S. Arizona in dry dock. Some nights it works well. Other nights, it just doesn't matter. It's become painful to lay on my side and lying on my back isn't an option unless my goal is total system failure. I'm kind of at a loss about what to do. I've heard tons of stories about how the little unborn ninja would practice kung-fu kicking mom in the ribs every night but no one has ever told me about how much it hurt as everything shifts from left to right or vise versa. This makes me wonder how "normal" I am. And while I'm at it, sharing secrets and all, I have the distinct pleasure of experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions for extended periods of time that usually only happen on one half of my abs. Today the left hand side of my body has been practicing its own workout version of the Abs of Steel while yesterday it was the right side.

No nesting yet. Well, not the cleaning kind of nesting. I have no desire this week to clean at all. This, of course, got me thinking (which happens often since I am unemployed and have nothing else really to do). Anyway, I was thinking the other day that maybe if I start cleaning some really crazy things I will trick my body into thinking its really time to go into labor and then the more active labor will start!

Yeah, that's just nuts. I'm right there with you. I think I'll stick with the measuring tape experiment instead.

30 Days To Go!

I have 30 days to go!

So I thought I would share some of the crazy theories I have heard on whether I am having a boy or a girl, because, just in case you didn't know this, it is still a secret-even to us.

• Heart beat: Fast heart beat means its a girl; slow heart beat means its a boy. I find this interesting because at one doctor's appointment early on, the heart beat was 136 beats per minute. Then for the next, say 6 appointments, the heart beat ranged between 145 and 152. During the last doctor's appointment, the heart beat was 135. So does that mean I had a boy in the beginning, a girl in the middle, and a boy at the end? Or am I pregnant with the highly rare hermaphrodite baby?
• If I carry high, its a girl; if I carry low its a boy. Interesting, yet again, but I happen to have carried the baby directly in the middle right across the belly button like a football. The kid likes to hang out sideways like my uterus is a relaxing summer hammock. 

Here come the fun, yet more bizarre ones.

• If I'm beautiful during the pregnancy it means its a boy. If I'm ugly, then it means I'm carrying a girl. The theory behind this one is that little girl babies suck, drain, and destroy the mom's beauty and take it for themselves. In essence they are beauty vampires. Little boy babies couldn't care less. Alex has been asked this question many times by my in-laws. I think he's smart enough to give the right answer each and every time (of course, I look beautiful! Duh). It's hard to believe this is a serious question but it makes me laugh anyway. On a side note, I have a family member who says that while his wife was pregnant he found her to be extremely unattractive (even though he says he would never have told her that) and they ended up having a boy.
• If my lips are full then I'm having a girl. If my lips are thin and dry then I'm having a boy. So how does that work out with Beautiful Theory above. Can someone be beautiful and yet have dry, cracked, genetically weak lips? How can you be ugly but have a supple and moist kisser? By the way, I've always had small thin lips. That hasn't changed. Even with lipstick and lipliner.
• Alex was instructed to do the following to find out if it is a boy or a girl. Wait until I fall asleep and then pour a pinch of salt on my head and then watch me. If I touch my hand to my nose, it will be a boy. If I touch my hand to my lips then it will be a girl. My response to this was: if you pour salt on my head while I'm sleeping, I'm going to punch you in the lips.
• Another crazy one. Alex is to thread a needle and then stick it in one of my veins. (WTH?) If the thread moves in a circle its a boy. If it vibrates back and forth its a girl. (Oh, the thread will move all right!) There is an American version of this where you just dangle to needle over a vein to see what it does. Something about the iron content in mum's blood. But I take prescription prenatal vitamins so this test would be null and void right off the bat. Plus, with my on-going fear and revulsion of needles, Alex knows better to ever attempt this. 

Fun times! Honestly, there is no way of knowing if its a boy or a girl until its born. Even sonograms get is wrong every once in a while. We'll all just have to wait a little longer.

I did go to the doctor today for my twice monthly appointment. It turns out that I have already dilated to 3 cm and I'm 75% effaced. Sweet! That means I only have 7 cm to go! It also means that the baby could be here before May 5th. Any takers on when the real due date might be?